Hog commentator Jim Long called his March 23 commentary, ‘hog prices continue to climb’ with Iowa – Southern Minnesota Friday, March 19 price averaging at $91.44, the highest price since October 2014. Pork Cut-outs closed Friday at $102.99 and so on.  
Long said help the poor producers who listened to the Chicken Littles who encouraged producers to sell hogs last August in the 2021 market. Why? Because these wizards said there would be more pigs in 2021 than in 2020. 
“Well, from January 1 to the week of March 14, the U.S. hog slaughter was -4.4 per cent lower than a year ago (1.330 million hogs fewer). No wonder the hog price is higher.” 
Sow Slaughter continues high, the last two weeks of data both over 66,000 a-week levels of liquidation in his opinion. 
In an interview, Long said in 2020 and earlier the industry wasn’t making money, with some months in 2020 as bad as ever. The cash price for feeder pigs last year the lowest in 20 years, prices of slaughter pigs next to nothing almost. When producers lose money, it means fewer pigs, fewer pigs coming, and that’s what’s happening right now.  
Take fewer pigs coming to market and consumer demand remaining strong with an improved economy in the U.S. and Canada people have money and buying more meat. The exports have stayed strong – it’s good for producers. 
“I think the prices are going to go higher because the second wave of African Swine Fever in China has hit them hard. It’s going to retract any recovery they’ve had in production. So exports are going to stay strong there, and I think there’s still a lot of upside to the summer market versus where the futures are today.” 
In China, one company in Henan province lost all 80,000 sows and other data shows the country lost nine million sows in two months. That’s Canada, the U.S., and Mexico’s sow herd combined. It’s almost incomprehensible, but it’s the scale, and China has done nothing to control the ASF. They haven’t put the rules in place like other countries because the profits are so high.  
The producer needs to figure how to keep that pig alive to make good money where feeder pigs are $275 US apiece. That’s a reflection of supply. So you have a $275 feeder pig; today, with the feed price in China, it’s about $160 to $170 to feed that pig.  
Long said countries and companies could print lots of data and records, but the only truth is price. In the U.S., the USDA had trouble in the last two inventory reports getting it right. In China typically, two different reports, but usually, they’re six million sows apart. 
It’s amazing. So the only truth is the price and the slaughter base have come down. But what happens in China? When pigs get ASF, they don’t bury them. If it was in Germany, they shoot them and bury them, or Russia, shoot them and bury — in China, ship them to market and eat the pigs. There’s no danger to humans, but they empty the barns, slaughter them as pork. 
Data shows 18 per cent of all the pigs going to slaughter in China right now are under 200 pounds. At $550 for a market hog, why ship a pig light? The only reason they’re sick and the producer is trying to slaughter before they die.  
Long said it puts pork on the marketplace driving down the price. The slaughter price still incredibly high came down, but what happens? It kills the pigs, and then they’re not there. The price will go back up. 
“In the short term probably tempers import because they have pork coming from these lighter pigs. We’ll see. That’s what happened before. I couldn’t figure out at first why the price wasn’t recovering. Once in China, I realized they don’t bury the pigs; they kill and eat them.” 
The economic factor is part of their problem. And what happens is the barns break. And then they try to fill farms right away because they want to get money back. But the thing is, they don’t have the barn cleaned upright. And they break again—it is chaos. •
— By Harry Siemens